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Subject:RE: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes? From:"Shannon Wade" <SWade -at- daktronics -dot- com> To:<dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com> Date:Thu, 6 Nov 2008 09:50:37 -0600
If the note were something that might prevent them from harm or difficulty, we would include it right there in the applicable text. However, the bulk of our "notes" were things like "Place couplers to allow for vertical and horizontal signal runs." We determined that these weren't worthy of their former note status. They have since been moved into the surrounding text. Anything else would be included within the text as well as in some front matter. I'm all about allowing lawyers to make their living. I'm just not interested in their making a living based on my mistakes! ;)
Shannon Wade
Technical Writer
tel 605.697.3219
website www.daktronics.com
From: Deborah Hemstreet [mailto:deborah -dot- hemstreet -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 6:36 PM
To: Shannon Wade
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes?
Hi Shannon,
I can understand the reasoning. I think that how you handle this is going to depend on the types of warnings. For serious safety issues, I would go for maximum redundancy and have them a minimum of twice - once in the special section, and once in the associated instructions where the problem could actually occur. I don't know if there have been studies done on this, but based on the reading behavior I have observed, people just do not want to read... so if you have it all in that chapter, the readers will be happy until they get to instructions and have an accident... they will say "you didn't tell me", you will say, "why didn't you read the first chapter," and their lawyer will say, "how hard would it have been to put it in with the instructions as well."
The judge? Given the American court system, I believe the judge would find for the plaintiff....
Just some thoughts for consideration as you approach the redo.
Deborah
Shannon Wade wrote:
Extremely valid points. And I do appreciate your input. It's something I will take into consideration when crafting my documentation. However, perhaps I didn't make it clear enough that we are including, at the beginning of each manual, in big bold print, and the idea of hot pink paper has been jokingly thrown around, a list of the major safety warnings. Anything else that requires their attention will be addressed by the individual business units in their own list of cautions and warnings. We are not attempting to side-step the warnings, nor are we attempting to bury them. We are actually trying to draw more attention to them than they have had in the past.
Shannon Wade
Technical Writer
tel 605.697.3219
website www.daktronics.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Leonard C. Porrello [mailto:Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 1:28 PM
To: Shannon Wade; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes?
My concern is that users arguably never read more than they absolutely
have to, and unless you somehow draw attention to warnings, they will be
probably be ignored. If I were working for a dishonest company (which I
am not) and I had to include something in a manual that I'd rather users
not read, I would embed it in a paragraph.
I am not sure that even "Note" in bold is a strong enough convention. To
me, "note" says, "something you might find of interest." That's not
sufficient for a warning. Instead, I use the international, triangular
symbol for "caution".
Of course, in saying all of this I assume that you want to create
documentation that is truly useful. If, on the other hand, the
documentation is just padding for the product, then embedding warnings
would be just fine.
Standardizing and single-sourcing is a wonderful. However, it should
never be done at the expense of the user.
Leonard
-----Original Message-----
From: Shannon Wade [mailto:SWade -at- daktronics -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 11:11 AM
To: Leonard C. Porrello; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes?
I'd be happy to share. We're looking to standardize as much of our
manuals as we can. I work for a company with multiple business units and
multiple tech writers for each of those business units. Our department
is currently going through "lean" for our manuals. We have determined
that if we can standardize much of our manuals into "chunks" that can be
used across multiple departments, replacement of information when
products are updated will be that much easier. The notes that we had
typically included were not formatted to be obvious to everyone. We felt
that we might as well remove the "note" designation so that the warning
was being included in the descriptive text.
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HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
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